by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Bookmarks Awards, the digital-centric advertising and publishing awards show, is reaching a tipping point, one that will either see it evolve away from its digi-only roots into something covering more integrated work, or see it link up with another award show to focus on a digital niche within more mainstream work.
Tag archives: by Herman Manson
Waytag — the location service that solves real-world business problems
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Waytag aims to solve several modern business problems in one go. For businesses set up in a bricks-and-mortar environment (that would be shops and offices), moving from one premises to another remains a major headache. If you move shop, will waytagyour customers be able to find you? Will they climb onto Google to find you, then onto your website, then navigate to your contact page with your location information, just to climb back onto Google maps to find your new store? Didn’t think so.
Waytag offers a location tag linked to a person, business, object, place or event. You update your Waytag, and clients will be able to find you on a mobile- or PC-friendly map.
It also offers a solution to those mobile warriors setting up office in coffee shop after coffee shop. Clients can now find you wherever your coffee urges take you, if they have permission from you to do so. Since Waytags are owner-managed the location is precise (well, accurate to one metre), much more so than, for example, Google Maps.
Hermaneutics: Lessons from MetropolitanRepublic’s Loerie nightmare
by Herman Manson (@marklives) There are many lessons to be drawn from the current fracas surrounding MetropolitanRepublic being caught out for failing to adhere to the submission rules of The Loerie Awards.
Loeries & Pendoring: Not quite a post-mortem
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Flames roared impressively, smoke spilled over the stage and kids screamed. I had just been reading their naively thankful tweets to their educational institutions, such as the AAA School of Advertising, expressing eternal gratitude for securing them seats IN THE FRONT ROW!! of the auditorium at The Loerie Awards, and I had been wondering what fate— and the ad industry — would have in store for them… Welcome to the biz, kiddos.
The ad industry gathered in Cape Town this past weekend, starting on Friday evening, 20 September 2013, with the Pendoring Awards [winners list] and continuing through Saturday and Sunday evenings with The Loerie Awards [Loeries 2013 — all winners], to celebrate and award its creative output of the past year.
Pendoring Awards promises ever-greater diversity
by Herman Manson (@marklives) This year the Pendoring Awards will yet again be sidelined by the Creative Circle, even as it shares the Creative Week stage with the Loeries. The Loeries remains the only local creative award that counts to the Creative Circle points system, except for their own Ad of the Month of course.
Local agency focuses SA as digital outsourcing destination
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Bluegrass Digital is positioned as a digital production agency for ad agencies. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the agency isn’t trying to break into a through-the-line positioning. Instead, it focuses on what it believes it does best – implementation.
Born in the late 90’s as a hardware and networking company it evolved into a digital production agency and by 1999 had an office in London to take advantage of an outsourcing model that saw work done in South Africa, where labour was less expensive than in the UK, and a client facing team operating in London.
Nick Durrant, MD at Bluegrass Digital had joined his brother James, the founding partner of the business, to run the UK operation after four years in the world of banking. His focus was targeting agencies with skill, capacity or even budget constraints and convincing them that South Africa could produce and implement digital solutions in a cost effective and efficient way.
Hermaneutics: ‘Blackface’ ad faces international backlash
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Cape Town agency Lowe + Partners and client Cape Town Fish Market has been strongly criticised for using ‘blackface’ in their latest TV commercial. The ad has even been featured on Al-Jazeera who reported that the it had sparked ‘outrage among South Africans.’
In American history especially, ‘blackface’ was used to create stereotyped caricatures of black people. Today it is still sometimes used as social commentary or satire but it is generally considered politically incorrect.
The ad in question references a stereotypical ‘African Dictator’ – with an actor in blackfaceand wearing an Afro – diverting funds into his “expense account.” The ad, which consists of various vignettes, features the same actor also playing a prostitute, a dodgy doctor, porn director and rental agent.
Mvelase Peppetta blogged that he found the ad seriously offensive and suggested lack of transformation in the ad industry might have played a role in the ad getting flighted in the first place. “People far smarter and more experienced in SA’s marketing industry than me have time and again explained how the lack of diversity in our ad industry leads to these kind of horribly offensive and stereotypical ads,” wrote Peppetta.
Govt partners take major stake in Independent Newspapers
By Herman Manson (@marklives) The Sekunjalo Independent Media (SIM) consortium has (finally) announced details of the ownership of the consortium that successfully bid for Independent News & Media SA. The consortium will hold 75% of the shares in the newspaper group while the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), through the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), will hold 25% (but wait – it’s not quite as simple as that – read on).
The publisher, about to be liberated from an Irish holding company widely credited with stripping a once powerful editorial operation to its bare bones, owns the Cape Times, Cape Argus, Weekend Argus, Daily Voice, The Star, Pretoria News, Saturday Star, Sunday Independent, Diamond Fields Advertiser, Weekend Pretoria News, Daily News, The Mercury, Post, Independent on Saturday, the Sunday Tribune, Isolezwe and a host of community newspapers.
Not a boom, real growth
By Herman Manson (@marklives) The African continent isn’t quite the growth honeypot ad agencies had been hoping for. That said – it’s certainly a growth market. While it doesn’t match the growth rates in Asia or even Latin America, listed agency networks seem to have decided any growth is good growth given the state of especially their European operations. North Africa remains fragile – ZenithOptimedia forecast only 1% growth in ad revenue in the Middle East & North Africa as political turmoil post the Arab Spring continues to rock the region. The company expects 2%-3% annual growth from 2013 to 2015.
Growth in adspend globally is predicted by ZenithOptimedia to hit 4.1% in 2013 and 5.6% in 2015. South Africa will be one of the top ten contributors to that growth between 2012 and 2015.
South Africa in the South, Kenya in the East and either Nigeria or Ghana in the West of Africa generally gets the most buzz from agencies seeking investment in the region.
EXCLUSIVE: Ogilvy Cape Town MD to leave agency, country
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Ogilvy Cape Town MD Gavin Levinsohn is resigning his position at the end of the year to emigrate to Australia, MarkLives has confirmed. The news was announced to Cape Town staff earlier this week.